News

Retired Justice John Paul Stevens has said he doesn’t believe that Brett Kavanaugh is the right person for the job of Supreme Court justice. And it’s not just Justice Stevens. Add to that over 2,400 law professors who think Kavanaugh is not a good fit. Yet the Republican-dominated Senate is still trying to ram his confirmation through.

Retired Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday that he no longer believes Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the Supreme Court, citing Kavanaugh’s heated performance during a Senate hearing last week.

Stevens, 98, made the comments in Boca Raton, Fla., before a group of retirees, according to the Palm Beach Post and the journalist who interviewed Stevens at the event.

Stevens, who served on the Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010, told the audience that he had praised one of Kavanaugh’s rulings on campaign finance in a book that Stevens wrote in 2014.

“At that time, I thought [Kavanaugh] had the qualifications for the Supreme Court should he be selected,” Stevens said, according to the Palm Beach Post. “I’ve changed my views for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability. . . . I feel his performance in the hearings ultimately changed my mind.”